Transmedia storytelling (also known as transmedia narrative or multiplatform storytelling) is the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies.
From a production standpoint, transmedia storytelling involves creating content[1] that engages an audience using various techniques to permeate their daily lives.[2] In order to achieve this engagement, a transmedia production will develop stories across multiple forms of media in order to deliver unique pieces of content in each channel. Importantly, these pieces of content are not only linked together (overtly or subtly), but are in narrative synchronization with each other.
Transmedia storytelling can be related to the concepts of semiotics and narratology. Semiotics is the "science of signs" and a discipline concerned with sense production and interpretation processes.
The origins of the approach to disperse the content across various commodities and media is traced to the Japanese marketing strategy of media mix, originated in the early 1960s.[3] [4] Some, however, have traced the roots to Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded (1740) written by Samuel Richardson and even suggest that they go back further to the roots of earliest literature.[5]
Some early works include, but are not limited to:
The study of transmedia storytelling—a concept introduced by Henry Jenkins, author of the seminal book Convergence Culture—is an emerging subject. Because of the nature of new media and different platforms, varying authors have different understandings of it. Jenkins states the term "transmedia" means "across media" and may be applied to superficially similar, but different phenomena. In particular, the concept of "transmedia storytelling" should not be confused with traditional cross-platform, "transmedia" media franchises,[11] or "media mixes".
One example that Jenkins gives is of the media conglomerate DC Comics. This organization releases comic books before the release of its related films so the audience understands a character's backstory. Much of transmedia storytelling is not based on singular characters or plot lines, but rather focuses on larger complex worlds where multiple characters and plot lines can be sustained for a longer period of time.[12] In addition, Jenkins focused on how transmedia extends to attract larger audiences. For example, DC Comics releases coloring books to attract younger audience members. Sometimes, audience members can feel as though some transmedia storylines have left gaps in the plot line or character development, so they begin another extension of transmedia storytelling, such as fan fiction.[13] Transmedia storytelling exists in the form of transmedia narratives, which Kalinov and Markova define as: "a multimedia product which communicates its narrative through a multitude of integrated media channels".[14]
In his book, You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Story, Houston Howard describes transmedia storytelling as “the art of extending a story across multiple mediums and multiple platforms in a way that creates a better business model for creators and a better experience for the audience.”[15]
Both traditional and dedicated transmedia entertainment studios have fully integrated and embraced transmedia storytelling techniques into entertainment culture. It began as a search for a new storytelling form, native to digital content and communications channels. Developing technologies have enabled projects to include single-player experiences in addition to real-time multiplayer experiences such as alternate reality games such as Fortnite. While the list of current and recent projects is too extensive to list here, some notable examples of transmedia storytelling include:
Scolari uses the example of 24 to show how transmedia storytelling occurs. 24 originated on Fox as a TV series but within a few years, it had generated a complex network of comics, video games, books, mobile episodes, etc. around the main character Jack Bauer and the Los Angeles Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU). Scolari writes that 24 creates a complex semiotic device for generating multiple implicit consumers who can be classified according to their relationship with the media. At the first level, there are single text consumers or those who just read the comic or play the video game. The consumer can understand the story without having to consume the rest of the texts. On a second level, 24 constructs different single media consumers. Here a viewer can enter the narrative world by watching the TV series every week. Finally, 24 created transmedia consumers because there are different media across different platforms that the consumer can enter into.
In "Digital State: How the internet is changing everything" (2013), author Simon Pont argues that transmedia storytelling is a theory that is at last starting to find its practical stride. Pont cites Ridley Scott's Alien prequel Prometheus (2012), and specifically the three viral films produced by 20th Century Fox as part of the advance global marketing campaign, as vivid executional examples of transmedia storytelling theory.
Where Robert McKee (Story, 1998) argues that back-story is a waste of time (because if the back-story is so good then this is surely the story worth telling), Pont proposes that storytellers like J. J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof have "pretty much lined McKee's argument up against a wall and shot it".[19] Pont goes on to argue, "Parallel and non-linear timelines, 'multi-verses', grand narratives with crazy-rich character arcs, 'back-story' has become 'more story', the opportunity to add Byzantine layers of meaning and depth. You don't create a story world by stripping away, but by layering".
In "Ball & Flint: transmedia in 90 seconds" (2013), Pont likens transmedia story-telling to "throwing a piece of flint at an old stone wall" and "delighting in the ricochet", making story something you can now "be hit by and cut by".[20]
Shannon Emerson writes in the blog post "Great Examples of Multiplatform Storytelling" that transmedia storytelling can also be called multiplatform storytelling, transmedia narrative, and even cross-media seriality. She also cites Henry Jenkins as a leading scholar in this realm.[21]
Transmedia storytelling mimics daily life, making it a strong constructivist pedagogical tool for educational uses.[22] The level of engagement offered by transmedia storytelling is essential to the Me or Millennial Generation as no single media satisfy curiosity.[23] Schools have been slow to adopt the emergence of this new culture which shifts the spotlight of literacy from being one of individual expression to one of community. Whether we see it or not, Jenkins notes that we live in a globally connected world in which we use multiple platforms to connect and communicate.[22] Using transmedia storytelling as a pedagogical tool, wherein students interact with platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Tumblr permits students' viewpoints, experiences, and resources to establish a shared collective intelligence that is enticing, engaging, and immersive, catching the millennial learners' attention, ensuring learners a stake in the experience.[24] Transmedia storytelling offers the educator the ability to lead students to think critically, identify with the material and gain knowledge, offering valuable framework for the constructivist educational pedagogy that supports student centered learning.[25] Transmedia storytelling allows for the interpretation of the story from the individual perspective, making way for personalized meaning-making[22] - and in the case of fully participatory projects - allows participants to become co-creators of the story.[26]
In "The Better Mousetrap: Brand Invention in a Media Democracy" (2012), Pont explains, "Transmedia thinking anchors itself to the world of story, the ambition principally being one of how you can 'bring story to life' in different places, in a non-linear fashion. The marketing of movies is the most obvious applications of thie concept. Transmedia maintains that there's a 'bigger picture opportunity' to punting a big picture to additional platforms. Transmedia theory, applied to a movie launch, is all about promoting the story, not the 'premiere date of a movie starring...' In an industry built on the conventions of 'stars sell movies', where their name sits above the film's title, transmedia thinking is anti-conventional and boldly purist."[27]
Transmedia storytelling is also used by companies like Microsoft and Kimberly-Clark to train employees and managers.[28]
Anders Gronstedt and Marc Ramos say "At the core of every training challenge is a good story waiting to be told. More and more, these stories are being told across a multitude of devices and screens, where they can reach learners more widely, and engage with them more deeply."[29]
However, transmedia storytelling isn't used much at lower education levels. Children would thrive using transmedia storytelling worlds in their learning, but many of these worlds have copyrights linked to them. Transmedia storytelling has yet to tackle learning and educating children, but there have been a few transmedia worlds that have begun to show up with education, mostly by Disney.[30]
Transmedia storytelling is apparent in comics, films, print media, radio, and now social media. The story is told different depending on the medium. With social media, the story is told differently depending on which social media platform someone uses (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) The scale in which the impact each medium has differs from medium to medium. Before social media, radio and print media were the primary medium to connect with an audience. With the advancements in technology, social media has become the go-to medium to reach a large group of people in a fast amount of time. In the ideal form of TS, “each medium does what it does best — so that a story might be introduced in a film, expanded through television, novels, and comics, and its world might be explored and experienced through game play. Each franchise entry needs to be self-contained enough to enable autonomous consumption. That is, you don't need to have seen the film to enjoy the game and vice-versa.”